War Forged Lasting Friendships : Pearl Harbor: When the Japanese attacked, the patriotic went to war. But after the war, Latinos in Santa Ana and elsewhere found that a soldier’s uniform still couldn’t get them into a restaurant or school.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Manuel Esqueda remembers sitting in Santa Ana’s old State Theater balcony--the seating area where Latinos were allowed--and wondering whether he would go to war.

“You knew at that point that you could die in a war, but I knew I had to go,” said Esqueda, then a 22-year-old steelworker. “The segregation wouldn’t stop me from joining. I knew I was going to fight for my country.”

Esqueda was one of hundreds of Latinos from Santa Ana who marched off to fight for their country. Yet, in their own city, Latinos were largely segregated. As the harvesters of Orange County’s booming orange, bean, and walnut crops, they lived mostly in the city’s three major barrios: Artesia, Logan and Delhi.

“We were treated a bit better than a pooch,” said Esqueda, who grew up in the Delhi barrio and now is a 67-year-old retired bank manager.

These veterans remember well that Pearl Harbor Day, the town they left behind and the trauma of war. And many returned home to Santa Ana, again confronting bigotry despite their military service. But they remained here, and watched the town change and grew old.

Through the years, these men have forged a lasting friendship. It is a friendship that has continuously brought them together through the passing years for weddings, bowling leagues, golf tournaments, simple phone conversations, and, at times, funerals.

In the 1940s, Santa Ana was a farm community where 15% of the population was Latino. Everyone knew just about everyone in the barrios. There was little fear of crime. Doors were left open at night. The children played together and were bused to the “Mexican” schools.

Movie houses, schools and restaurants were segregated, Latinos and blacks separated from Anglos.

Barbershop owner Robert Benitez, now 68, remembers being cuffed behind the ears if his teachers caught him speaking Spanish in school. He and his brothers, Richard, 75, and Raul, 67, lived in the West 2nd Street Barrio.

“The bus would come along and pick up all the little Mexicans. They didn’t want us to mix with the white children,” Benitez said.

But when the United States declared war, Benitez and his two brothers felt a duty to go.

“We were born and raised here. We didn’t know another country. We didn’t love another country. You just love your own,” said Benitez, who joined the Navy to become a gunner’s mate a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Ben de Leon, now 69 and a former director for the county’s Veteran Service Office, heard about Pearl Harbor while he was playing touch football at the corner of Katella Avenue and Los Alamitos Boulevard.

“I didn’t know what Pearl Harbor was. I envisioned a place full of pearls. I thought war was like a fairy tale. You push a whole bunch of buttons and the war would be over,” said de Leon, who served as a second lieutenant in the 104th infantry in France and Germany.

Like other young men, de Leon didn’t think the war would last long. A grain mixer for Dr. Ross’ Dog and Cat Food Co., de Leon also didn’t think he had to serve.

“I thought, ‘Why should I have to go.’ I didn’t own any property, not an inch. I was young. I thought nothing could touch me. But little by little, reality crept up on me. My friends started going,” de Leon said.

As a 23-year-old, de Leon went from mostly rural Orange County to the battle lines in France and Germany, where his infantry unit was constantly under fire. In battle, even the ordinary things in life, such as watching a movie, became quite extraordinary.

Once, he remembers, as the United Service Organizations was showing the Western “Saratoga Trunk” to soldiers in a farmhouse, the Germans began firing artillery rounds. Although the screen shook and the walls and ceiling threatened to collapse, the soldiers were determined to see their weekly movie.

“We yelled out to the USO, ‘Don’t you stop that movie.’ They wouldn’t dare shut the movie down. We ended up watching the whole movie. It was great,” de Leon said.

World War II meant wondering whether friends were ever coming back from overseas. Manuel Esqueda almost didn’t.

Two years after Pearl Harbor, 22-year-old yeoman Esqueda was blown off his cruiser, the USS Princeton, when it was torpedoed in the Philippines. For three hours he floated in the sea while pools of burning oil singed his beard.

“I can see arms, legs, bodies floating by,” he said. “I did a lot of prayer. What else can you do? I faced death for my country.”

There were times Robert Benitez, too, thought he was never going to survive to see the war end.

As a gunner’s mate, Benitez served with the Armed Guard for merchant vessels. During a stint in Okinawa, his ship and several others were the targets of kamikazes--Japanese pilots sworn to suicidal missions.

“They flew so close to the ships that we were actually able to see some of the pilots’ faces. They looked really determined. All you could do was to shoot right at them. You didn’t have much time to do anything else,” Benitez said.

For those who did come back, adjustment to Santa Ana took time. It also meant facing discrimination again.

When de Leon tried to buy a two-bedroom house on Artesia Street, which is now Raitt, his neighbors passed a petition to try to prevent the owner from selling the home to him.

The owner did not bow to pressure and eventually sold the home to de Leon. But the experience left de Leon feeling wary about the war.

“I was disappointed, confused, and angry. I thought, why did I fight for this country. Why the hell did I go for. I felt helpless,” de Leon said.

Robert Benitez’s brother, Raul, felt the same sort of disillusionment soon after returning to Santa Ana. After taking a walk through his hometown, Raul Benitez, dressed in his Army uniform, stopped for a bite to eat at a downtown restaurant. The manager refused to serve him because he was of Mexican descent.

Benitez got into a scuffle with the manager and was kicked out. He still bristles over the anger and humiliation he felt at the time.

“Here it is, the war is over. I fought it and it’s still like this . . . all this separation still,” Benitez said.

Even with the end of the war and the return of hundreds of Latino veterans, it still took years of legal wrangling for Santa Ana to close the books on segregation policies in its schools and other institutions.

“Before the war, so many doors were closed to us. We forged friendships here and there because we needed each other, and the friendships have lasted through everything,” de Leon said.